It’s a Beautiful Mind

the yeshiva dotnet there are three kinds of people those who know how to count and those who don't okay it took you a moment I understand it's before your coffee I speak about those who know how to count and those who don't because there's something uniquely strange about the way we count what we call Shri Asaram er the way we count the 49 day count between Passover pace offense Lewis the background to this is in a statement in Gomorrah and Talmud tractate Monaco's page 66 Monaco's Samaha vomit I love 66 a I quote a merabh ayah abaya says mitzvah lemony yummy Oh mitzvah lemony shabooey it is a mitzvah to count the days and it's also a mitzvah to count the weeks and the Gemara continues that the rabbis who learned in the yeshiva ever of a she manu join me Imani Shibui indeed used to count both the days and the weeks and then the gomorrah says there was another great sage am a mar who would only count the days and not the weeks Amari says a Charla mikdash it's only a commemoration a memory of the way it was in the temple times and he only counted days and not weeks because he felt it was not a biblical obligation now what does this mean what does our body mean when he says there's a mitzvah to count days and a mitzvah to count weeks it all begins with a positive verse in parshas Emmer in the portion of Emmer with a terrorist says and I quote ausfahrt M la Hamim Icarus a Shabbos neo mariya , Samaritan oofah Sheva Shabazz's to Mimas tiene from the day a after the first day of Yom Tov my motherís our Shabbos means the morrow the marrow of the Shabbos muckross means tomorrow the morrow of the Shabbos meaning the day Shabbos trimmings jumped of the first day of basic the first day after Yom Tov which means the second day of Passover you should start counting from the day that you bring an offering knowing as the Omer offering you should begin counting and continue counting for seven full weeks aadmi macorís our Shabbos our Sri is just pure Commission Miriam you should count until you get to the end of the seven weeks count altogether up to fifty days and then you celebrate truest and you have a special offering unto us there's another posture can Paris or a and Deuteronomy the Torah says shiver shove who is T Spurlock you should count seven weeks mayhawk Hill her maze bakoma from when you pick up the sickle to the harvest from when you lift up your sickle to the standing crop and you begin cutting it partly spread shiver shove always start counting seven weeks following which you celebrate the holiday of shrews what was the background the historical background of this Mitzvah on the second day of Pesach the sixteenth day of the Hebrew month of Nisan there was an obligation to bring a special offering from barley the representatives for the base--emitter she would go to a field a farm of barley they would harvest the new grain the new barley that grew during this new spring season and was ripe by Pesach and they harvested this grain this barley they would process the barley until it was ground it would they grind the barley the kernels of the barley into flour very very fine flour they would put it through a sifter through a sieve thirteen times until all of the sediments were removed and the flour the barley flour was very fine this was brought to the Holy Temple to the base--emitter dish where it was processed the Cayenne the priest would then take a fistful of flour we call this a commits ax he would fill up much of his fist with the barley flour this is what it looked like and this flower was placed on the altar on the MS baya who where was consumed by the flames of the altar how much flour did you need for this offering the measurement is called in Hebrew on a mare on a mare is basically the volume of how much flour which was the volume of 43.2 eggs that was the measurement of flour that was needed so after they grinded the kernels into flour they needed this volume this measurement called Omer that's why it's called the carbon armor armor I involve memory sure AM er is a measurement of how much flour again the volume of forty three point two eggs and a fistful of this was taken by the Cayenne burned on the altar and then the rest of the flour was baked it was baked as matzah this is Pesach actually most of the meal grains throughout the year were matzah it was baked as matzah and the Cohanim would eat it this was called the carbonara when was it brought it was brought the first thing in the morning of the second day of Pesach the 16th of miss after that all the new produce all the new crop that you had in your field whether it was barley or wheat or spelled or oats or are all the new crop all the new grain was now permitted permissible to eat this is called a huh - the new grain that grew so the Torah says whose fireteam lehem me Maharaja Shabbos from the day after the first day of Yom Tov basic has one day inherit Israel the day after you should start counting me or him have the alchemist a marathon oofah from the day that you bring this offering called the Eimer this measurement of barley flour from that day you start counting so they would start counting that day actually the night before that was day one and you count for seven weeks 49 days following which you have the fiftieth day of shrews but what we see here is that the terrier talks about two forms of counting it speaks about counting seven weeks and Counting 49 days it says who's fired them lock em in Makaha Shabbos Sheva about those two memos tiene you should count seven weeks in the next verse it says tis parole commission you should count up to fifty days so it enumerates two counts account of weeks and a count of days also later in purchaser a it's going to say Shiva cheveux eyes teeths bar look you should count seven weeks hence a bhaiya teaches us in the Talmud there is a mitzvah to count days and there is a mitzvah to count weeks and that's why both are done so you say today is day 1 day 2 day 3 day 4 day 5 day 6 day 7 but that's not enough hayashi volumes shame Shavua Akkad Lima today is 7 days which constitutes one week and the next day will be day 8 which constitutes a week and a day and then you'll hit day 14 our mr.boss for today's 14 days aim smash of always lime or 2 weeks why the need for both because the Torah specifies two counts it speaks about counting seven weeks but it also says to count up to fifty days so we do both we count the days and we also count the unit of weeks as explained yet when we think about it it seems strange why is the Torah adamant that we count both days and weeks simultaneously one of these counts seems completely superfluous and unnecessary what do we gain by counting the weeks after we have already counted the days what would be missing if we left two weeks or conversely if we left out the days why can't we just say today is seven days to the Eimer if you want to figure out how many weeks you'll do the math yourself it's not so difficult to know that seven days constitutes a week and nine days constitutes a week in two days and ten days is a week in three days you could figure that out on your own or conversely stick to the week's say today is one week to the ER today is three weeks to tho i'ma today is three weeks and a day to the armorer one does not have to be a genius to figure out the weeks from the days or the days from the weeks and yet the tire enumerate both counts and hence our body tells us mitzva aluminio me mitzvah lemonade shavoo it's a mitzvah to count the days and it's a mitzvah to count the weeks there's another very interesting perplexing issue here and that has to do with the nature of the obligation itself as I said the tire connects the Mitzvah of counting with the offering of barley grain barley flour brought on that second day of pace that's why we call it Spheeris Homer the counting of the imma ask a regular person why is it called the counting of the Eimer so the answer should be clear by now the Omer is a measurement of flour and we began counting from that day when we offered that measurement of flour as an offering to God again a small part of it burnt on the altar and the other part of it was eaten by the cayenne M so the Eimer is the volume of the flour that was prepared as we said the volume of mem gimel bateson vakama how much bates of the volume of 43.2 eggs that's why the Taira says you do it from the day that you brought the a mariachi loofah so now here is the question today we don't have the base we don't bring this offering anymore we don't have the ability to bring this offering so here is the question are we still mandated to do this count is this count called Spheeris armored dependent on the offering if there's no offering there's no medicine to count because you're counting from the day that they brought the sacrifice but if there's no offering there's no Mitzvah to count the count is part of the offering so without the armor without the physical offering are we still obligated to count the seven week period and the answer as you may have guessed probably is that there is an argument there is a dispute among the great sages and the two major personalities in this dispute on one side stands the Rambam Maimonides Rubino militia band my mine who was born in Spain escaped to Morocco to the Holy Land and then to Egypt where he lived for the remainder of his years on the other side you have the view known as the view of Taurus which was the tourist constituted the sages from the house of Rashi who lived in France during the 12th and 13th century the Rambam is of the opinion and the same opinion is shared by the safer Akeno and the Revilla that the Mitzvahed account is not dependent on the physical offering itself so even today we still have a biblical commandment that count 49 days between Peyser and shrews however Taurus and most Halawa Kythera teas including the view that is articulated intial Honora in the code of Jewish law in the laws of Spheeris armor which is Eric I am Section tough pate s 489 maintain that the biblical mitzvah of counting is directly pendant on the actual Homer offering hence today they are you there is no biblical Mitzvahed account anymore because there's no carbon why then do we count and they say the rabbi's instituted this as a rabbinic commandment is a hella mikdash there are many commandments that they instituted in order to commemorate in order to remember in order to remain connected to the consciousness and to the lifestyle during the time of the holy temple and this is one of those mitzvahs that the rabbis initiated there are many rabbinic mitzvahs that are not biblical mitzvahs for example lighting the Shabbos candles as a rabbinic mitzvot washing our hands before we eat bread is a rabbinic mitzvot saying hallelu nourish Cornish as a rabbinic mitzvah reading the Megillah on Purim is a rabbinic Mitzvah Leidy Chanukah candles is a rabbinic Mitzvah there was no ham occur during biblical times drinking four cups of wine in the night of Pesach is a rabbinic mitzvah reclining at the Pesach say they're just another example is a rabbinic mitzvah davin eat three times a day Schaffner is and then men offend and my riff which men are obligated in as a rabbinic mitzvah even if the kernel of Fela of darvany is a biblical mitzvah according to the Rama according to this view counting of the Omer is a rabbinic commandment safer Lamech - a commemoration for the besan mikdash it's not what we call a mitzvah the Arizer which was a full-fledged biblical commandment it's called a mitzvah Madeira Bannen or a mitzvah made every South Rim which commemorates the Mitzvah the way it was fulfilled the time of the base--emitter which explains why right after we make the blessing and we count what do we say right after that a special prayer hurrah c'mon who yawanawa Vedas Mesa Mukesh Lim coma boom hey Arabia may no Amin seller may God restored to us the service in the holy temple speedily in our days man for eternity we just did a mitzvah why are we saying now a special prayer the answer is because since according to many a locket views it's not a biblical minutes only rabbinic mitzvot why because we don't have the carbon the actual offering so right after we do the mitzvot the verbal mitzvot of counting we pray that you should restore that vytas base I mean there so we can do the full-fledged Mitzvah the biblical myths were not only the rabbinic myths for the way it was done in the days of yore when they brought the carbon I'm air so it's two different opinions in our life as I told you one side you have the Ramayana and others the other side you have twice first initial tomorrow who maintained that it's a rabbinic mitzvot of sphere as I'm aware the RAM mom says no it's two separate things it's still a biblical mitzvah today even though you can't bring the carbon you could still count there is however a third opinion of course the third opinion is alone we call a lone opinion fascinating intriguing and it comes from a 13th century French and Spanish great sage known as Rob a New Jerusalem Robin yerucham was one of the great Rochon him who was born approximately 1290 in France and when the Jews were expelled from France completely expelled from France in the early 1300s he obviously left France he moved to Spain he became one of the one of the great sages in Spain and rabiner yerucham wrote a halakhah quirk known as told Osama hava which means literally the offspring of other men cava and there Robina you knew him who lived at the end of the 1200s and in the 1300s 14th century first in France and then in Spain introduces a new Hollow quick view and to appreciate his a logic view we have to be sensitive to nuance so you can understand his view I'll tell you what is viewers and I'll tell you this the origin of it he has a fascinating proposition and he says the count of the day's remains biblical even today the count of the weeks is only rabbinic today it's not biblical so he makes a distinction between the two cows what's the logic behind us he says take a look in the past when the plastic speaks about weeks it always associates it with the offering but when it speaks about days it speaks of the count of days independent of the offering so take the verse and parsha cemre who's fired Tim LaHaye me Maharaja Shabbos me om javi a famous American offer Sheva a boss owes me miss dianna from the day that you bring the carbon count seven weeks so to count weeks you need a carbon but then in the next verse it just says this parole commission yo you should count up to 50 days not connecting it explicitly with the offering later in Parkchester a it will say Shiva Shavuot Spurlock my household cameras by comma you should count the seven weeks from when you take the sickle and you harvest the crop that's when you begin counting seven weeks or if any roham says the two counts have different ha logic criteria the count of the weeks is dependent on the offering of the omer that you brought in the base of mikdash when there was an offering brought in the second day of pay so he had a mitzvah to count seven weeks when there's no offering any more preservation if this was destroyed the Torah doesn't mandate you to count weeks but it still mandates you to count days they one day seven they ate a 16 day 23 day 29 day 33 day 49 without weeks the rabbis came and said even today we should still count weeks week 1 week 2 week 3 why as a memory for the base of English but biblically we only have to count today's today so we have three completely different Halak views we have Rambam on one side who says everything is a biblical mandate today counting the days and counting the weeks just as it was in the days of yore because the count and the offering are not dependent on each other and thus we still have a biblical mandate to do Spheeris homer on the other side you have toasters and others who say the entire count is a rabbinic mitzvah it's a rabbinic obligation to remember the base of Mukesh and the consciousness and the awareness and the mitzvah of then but today we are not biblically mandated to count both days and weeks and then comes the intermediary view of romania' roham who says days still retain their biblical power and when I count the days of spirits Hamer I'm not doing a rabbinic Mitzvah I'm doing what's called a mitzvah erisa a mitzvah of Tyrel but the weeks that I can't do anymore minitor I have no obligation the rabbi's introduced that as isaiah la mikdash which when we think about his opinion it becomes really strange how are we to understand the ration now behind us is there a real difference between saying today is 28 days of the Eimer or saying today is four weeks of diamond-like what's the big difference if I say today is 28 days what happened I fulfilled a biblical mitzvah if I say today is four weeks no no no no no that's not the Mitzvah you don't fulfill the Mitzvah that way it's a rabbinic commandment how can we make sense of this distinction the days are a biblical mandate the weeks are rabbinic mandates now to be sure he offers convincing proof from the text of the Toyota but that only transfers the question to the tailor what would be the logic to command the Jewish people today in exile to count only days and not weeks if the count is valuable count days and weeks count weeks and not days we say no in exile days in the weeks and in the Holy Temple its days and weeks so one can say it's what the Torah says don't ask questions but as the Rambam teaches us call my shot at your holy teen low-tom Tenleytown much of Tyria allows itself to be appreciated to be understood to be internalized to glean great lessons from it what then can be the rationale behind the view of revena Yocum you see the views of the remnant eyes force are clear either the entire obligation is a biblical or the entire obligation as rabbinic I can deal with that but the split there are any arutam suggests seems deeply and magmatic even absurd why would the Taira make this differentiation why would it deny use the opportunity to count weeks during exile but still obligate us to count days during the Exile here we will discover once again how nuances in Jewish law in halakhah embody profound ideas values and truths in life just as a tiny tiny change in a DNA molecule translates into profoundly dramatic and significant changes in the entire organism it inhabits Zoe Satara Adam it's true about a tiny change in a DNA molecule one that you need an extraordinary microscope to be able even to begin to perceive and even then you won't always perceive it it's true in the biology of the any organism and it's true in the cosmic biological structure cult IRA sometimes a little new and Jewish law it would seem not very valuable and significant but it embodies an enormous ly significant and profound idea and truth in life for this we need to excavate a bit the mystery of the days and of the weeks what does it mean to count days what does it mean to count weeks after this whole backdrop I hope you can understand what we began with the Gemara Menaka 66 our buyer said it's a mitzvah to count days and weeks the rabbi's in the yeshiva rib-eye she used to count days and weeks I made my counter days and not weeks because he said today the whole obligation is rabbinic it's only say Allah mikdash as rashly explains and therefore he only counted the days what is the mystery of days and weeks why did they confer so much significance I'm making this distinction between days and weeks when we're talking about numbers and numbers of days that are passing whether you count them or not whether you're aware of their passage or not time moves is there really such profound significance to discount and then the count of days and weeks if one doesn't understand the depth of this it can really see quite strange we know and it's printed in most of the prayer books in the section of Spheeris armor that's the heart the soul of every human being is comprised of seven basic character traits seven basic characteristics and the seven weeks of the counting of the Eimer parallel these seven characteristics their names are published in most prayer books in the section of spirits armor each week we focus on one of them and their names are hazard Gura tavares nets are hide aside and malkos we are right now presently in the week when we focus on nets Allah an English strap English translation of these seven is hazardous law of kindness Gura is discipline restraint strength boundaries to Pharisees beauty empathy harmony nets 'his victory like Linnet saya meat ciccone victory ambition hide like laho dot is humility gratitude surrender submission acknowledging mistakes you side is bonding communicative 'ti malkos is leadership royalty regality kingship confidence selflessness the count of seven weeks then is not just a count of seven weeks cherish our bosses but Judaism designates a period of the year for what I would call communal therapy dues individual therapy that you do any day of the year but there is a process called communal therapy communal therapy and that's what Spheeris armor really is it's when the community gathers together and together focuses on working each week on one of these dimensions of the self it's a process when we are summoned individually and collectively to go through a process of healing of recovery of renewal of our inner self step-by-step issue-by-issue emotion by emotion so each one of the seven weeks we focus on one of the seven emotions in our lives examining it tuning into it refining it fixing it repairing it enhancing it aligning it with the divine seven emotions as we say in the post secondary Amla Hashem Haga doula Vera Guevara waha Taveras Vanessa VR Hoyt commercial invoice lahar Shama mom locker we align our seven with their ultimate core with the divine 7 so the first week of the counting the first seven days we focus on the quality of love in our life yes it do I know how to express love do I know how to remote with love do I know how to receive love do I know how to love the second week we focus on something else guru we focus on our capacity for creating boundaries do I know how to create and maintain proper borders in our life you can raise your hand if the answer is yes do you know how to create and maintain proper boundaries in your life the third week we focus on what we call it if Aris our ability for empathy do I know how to empathize do you know how to empathize do I know how to be here for somebody else on their terms not on my terms anybody okay the fourth week this week is Metsa what's our focus this week we focus on our capacity to triumph in the face of adversity do I know how to win do I have ambition do I have ambitions in my life do I know how to face adversity and overcome it without ducking submitting and surrendering the fifth week we focus on something else it's called hoids my ability to express gratitude do I know how to express gratitude do I know how to show vulnerability do I know how to admit mistakes do I know how to really say thank you to somebody do I know how to be vulnerable in the presence of somebody else do I know how to really apologize that's a very different quality than Metsa that's the quality of height the sixth week you saw it we focus on our ability to communicate and to bond the seventh week we folk on our skill as leaders Mallos am i confident enough to lead do I know how to lead do I possess inner confidence and inner dignity and an inner sense of Mallos of value but there's two mitzvahs there's a mitzvah to count days and there's a mitzvah to count weeks what's the difference each of the seven weeks is divided further into seven days each of these seven traits is expressed in our lives in so many different ways so even though there are seven basic character traits seven building blocks of the soul but each one is manifested functionally or dysfunctional II constructively or destructively in so many diverse ways in different thoughts in different words and different actions so that's why we don't only count the week we also further count seven days within each week as we say in this Fira the first week there is a sense of a facet there's Girish of a facet there's tafero Sabbath that's it this week for example there is Cassatt Sheva net sock guru a bonanza TIF eret seven that suck what are all these things there is nets except in that sack ambition or the ability to triumph in the face of adversity could be expressed in so many different ways and so many different has so many different manifestations do I know for example how to express my ambitions kindly Girish a bonanza do I know how to create bow injuries to my victories and my ambitions TIF eret 7 that'sa today do I have empathy in my victories I may have won but can i connect forever be empathetic to another perspective to another side net saktia banitsa do i know how to right for what I have to fight for and so on and so forth so each one of these attributes each one of these character traits has so many diverse nuances through which it trickles down in day to day life so you have the week represents the core of the emotion one week it's Hesed one week it's Laura one week it's Taveras one week it's let's at high decide Malthus this week victory ambition that's the core but the individual days of the week represents the detail the detail trickling down of this core emotion into the day-to-day behaviors into my schedule into my interactions my daily interactions in a very individual fashion so the count of the weeks represents focusing on the core emotion that's represented by the week it's a full emotion that goes for seven weeks the counting of the days is the way I focus on the actual details the nuances of how those emotions are expressed in my life so when I say today is one week to the i'ma what am I saying on an emotional or psychological level what I'm saying is today I managed or I'm trying to tune in to the full scope of my experience or inability to experience love transforming it repairing it healing it at its core at its core that's what today is one week today's two weeks means I managed or I tried to tune in to the very core of my experience of boundaries and try to heal all of those dysfunctional dynamics which may be compromising that experience all the way at its core that's what the count of the weeks represents you know every once in a while you'll hear a little you'll read some extraordinary story about somebody who was struggling with an addiction or a trauma for many years and they discovered one day a deep insight or perhaps they went to some therapeutic weekend or they went to some retreat for a week or they found some great healer or a nutritionist or acupuncturist or energy experts and somehow he or she opened up all the blockages and they emerged as a new human being a child was born somehow that person or the program of the insight touched and penetrated such a deep core within themselves that this person now maintains or claims that they've been transformed the trauma is gone or Siri or much of it is gone with addiction is gone or the anger is gone or the jealousy is gone literally like a child who one day actually embraces the fact that it's time to be toilet trained and at that point he rejects hopefully for the rest of his life or her life the idea of doing it in a different way you just discover this new way of living and the old way is out the window there is no challenge any longer the child at last has matured to a certain degree to a specific degree and sometimes a person will say I have managed to count my weeks I transformed this particular emotion completely weeding out and uprooting all of the distortions they say that there was an Amish boy who was visiting a mall together with his father and they grew up in Amish land and Amish culture and they were amazed by most everything they saw but specifically they were astounded by two shiny silver walls that could move apart and then the two walls could come back together again the boy asked the father what are these two shiny silver walls separating and coming back and the father says I've never seen anything like this in my life I really don't know what it is so they decide that they will stand there and observe what happens so they're standing wide-eyed eyes fully open mesmerized by the scene watching an old lady in a wheelchair being rolled up to these moving walls she presses a button sure enough the two walls open the Ray lady rolled between them into some small room the doors the walls closed and the boy and the father are watching these small circles of lights with numbers above the walls light up they can't believe what they're seeing but they continue to watch these circles light up in the reverse direction up and then down and sure enough the walls open up and a beautiful young 24 year old healthy steps out and the father looks at the boy and says go get your mother so sometimes sometimes people will describe their lives about it they're like sometimes we will describe their lives in the same way reflect on a moment perhaps that has completely transformed you a moment an encounter and experience that changed you as a person something maybe that was once so difficult and today it comes with ease it's not an issue at all something that you used to be so anxious about for some people it's maybe social anxiety and then one day as a result of some you're aware of or not it's gone or something else that was so excruciating ly painful and now you don't even blink for some people it's maybe when they quit smoking and now they don't even have a temptation for some people it's complementing another person complimenting their spouse complimenting a friend complimenting their mother complimenting your child perhaps you were very insecure very shy very apathetic lazy something that was so difficult and you take a moment and you reflect on it and you say thanks and you appreciate the gift of transformation but here is where frustration sets in because we are often led to believe that these things are common that there are elevators will you go in and you pay a few bucks and you go up and you come back down and you come out and you're a new person there are many gurus healers programs books seminars workshops teachers promise this and the ads are so tempting and the design is so flashy and psychologically appealing that you're made to feel that if I can only join this I will emerge as a new person sometimes there are experiences that really change people and transform them completely but these are unique and rare experiences all too often the bark is bigger than the bite and drama and fanfare of what you're going to get is far more dramatic than what you actually get now sometimes you're dealing with people who really don't have any goods and after 1 2 3 5 10 times you see you were just duped but even when we're not dealing with charlatans or let's say truly ignorant peep but rather with people of some substance and depth we often come back to our regular lives on a high the elevator opened up and I'm a new person only to discover a week later or two weeks later or a month later or maybe six months later I said as Elba Yenta under slight translation okay I'll translate what she said don't blame it on me the same Yenta with a different cut thank you [Laughter] got it in other words yeah and it could get very frustrating for people very very annoying sometimes very discouraging I did when here and I went here and I went dear and everyone promised me after this week and you're gonna be a new person i Nesta Kat Doug how do you say that these are yudish expressions that our grandmothers developed over a thousand years I don't have to translate but basically means Nitschke stoyan and there's good flow again that Engle is that English it basically means it never happened that never will happen and what we're failing to appreciate is that counting of the Eimer is not only the weak model it's also that day model that's the significance of the day model versus the weak model this is the model that belongs to each of us every day and every moment of the day I'm not always capable of the weak model sometimes I am but sometimes I'm not sometimes I'm not really capable of the weak model but I am always capable of the day model and what does the day model mean there's no magic there's no great transformation I don't look in the mirror and I say everything dysfunctional everything dramatic everything undesirable has been rooted out for all of eternity I am a new human being could cotton channel Adame the urges maybe they're the temptations maybe they're the dysfunction maybe they're the pain maybe they're the trauma maybe they're the addictions maybe they're the negative emotions maybe ever-present the promiscuous cravings and add any other adjectives you would add based on your own awareness and your therapists advice to the list what I do managers I manage to refine the day meaning I learn how to control we're and how this emotion will be expressed in the details of my life I may not have the ability to redefine the very core of the issue I may not be able to go into my system and literally create a transformation people do cosmetic surgery with the hope that they're going to become new people again in Yiddish our next ticket ugh this spiritual surgery to be able to create a new person create genetic mutations go into my genetic level and take out the genes I don't like play with the DNA I'm talking and a psychological emotional / spiritual level I may not have the ability to redefine the very essence of the issues I'm struggling with I can't create recreate the entire week but I can still choose how it will be channeled or not channeled in the details of my life and this is we're real healing is available to everybody always because if I go away to that weekend or this person or this program at this book what I'm hoping for is not always complete transformation what I'm hoping for is awareness and awareness we spoke many times with the Gemara says in aimed Asaf doula me nyan if there is no there's no perception you could never create separation of dollar that's why the text for half dollars in which blessing it's my Nasir after honing la Adam das Y says do you Rachelle me half dollar to separate to choose what is choice if not half dollar all choice is of duller separation I choose this versus this can only come if there's das if there's true perception if that's true awareness what does this awareness look like what does this awareness look like this awareness looks like I'll go back to the metaphor that I used I think it was last week or was last week about notion right Talmud lemma Hakodesh Arnie I'm gonna use the same metaphor because I think it gives a very accurate description of this I'm driving a car I approach a red light I have someone in the backseat screaming take the red light we're gonna miss the hopper just do it the guy is screaming right in my ear the screaming is loud and annoying I cannot shut that person up he's been there for 30 years I can't you know the story revisal car if he was a very sharp Jew his wife was sharper and Erev Pesach in the morning she says aisel did you already get rid of the hummus from your house so he says most of it but there's one piece of hummus in the house it's been around for many many years been around 41 years that they didn't get rid of she says that piece of how much you don't have to worry about 41 years ago my father sold it to a complete guy you're good this voice this voice this is male humour sorry this voice has been but it's funny this voice has been screaming in your ear for many many years I can't just get rid of it but here's the deal here is the deal imagine I tell you I can drive safely because there is a voice you could drive safely thank God you have the steering wheel because you have the steering wheel no amount of screaming or convincing can make you take the light unless you choose to but in order to understand this you have to understand one thing that the backseat drivers screaming is not the voice of truth it's not the voice of sanity it's not the true value of where you want to go and how you want to go and when you want to go because you know that the screamer is an alien voice to yourself he's a stranger and he is behind this ludicrous and strange idea to take a red light especially when there's a hundred cars coming the other way you may not be able to stop the screaming but you can identify it as an alien voice and thus quarantine it putting it into context where it belongs as basically a strange voice which happens to be stupid as well but imagine if when hearing the voice take the red light or make a left and making a left will basically take you to California when you got to get to the city but imagine you decide that that voice is your own rational mind speaking to you it's your intelligence speaking to you then it becomes much harder to say no so what's the choice the choice is to say no only because you can become aware of what you own what is truly yours what you want to identify with as your most beloved self and what is a voice that you have to deal with the challenges and the backseat driver is not sitting in the back seat the backseat driver in life is sitting right here and that's why to make a choice you have to have more das so even if I am experiencing something and I'm right now being emotionally hijacked by my trauma or by my abuse or by difficult stuff I have to deal with I still have the wheel in my hand I may not have the ability to transform my urge I may not have the ability to stop the screaming or speaking of certain thoughts chatter voices emotions experiences but as long as I can identify this thought is not my essence it's coming from a part of me that doesn't represent my best self it comes from a part of me that suffers from insecurity or a lot of fear or a lot of unwholesomeness because of certain experiences it doesn't matter that I don't have the ability to transform all sides of myself what matters most is that I choose which side of myself I want to right now and Trust to the steering wheel of life how do I want to react how do I want to react to my wife to my husband to my son to my daughter to my friend to my boss to my partner to my father to my mother to my sister to my brother to the stranger that is a choice I make based on choosing which self is going to play itself out and emerge it will dictate my behavior my words my actions I received an email from a woman she's a very very intelligent person a writer extremely skilled and talented writer she struggles with depression and with suicidal thoughts she's a mother of children and she wrote to me recently this email that was inspired by a class she heard of mine on the yeshiva dotnet and she wrote this I quote almost verbatim I always believed rabbi Jacobsen then when I have my suicidal urges I am not in control after all suicide urges are in something I could bring up at will they are usually triggered and usually the trigger is so powerful because for these suicide ideas to surface with so much vengeance and oomph it happens as a trigger that I can't expect and therefore can't stop or initiate but this time around based on this teaching that she was referring to which was similar to what I was sharing now I realized that thoughts were just that thoughts I realized that thoughts were just that thoughts and it's we you choose if to engage the thoughts and define ourselves by them or not my greatest challenge was that when thoughts came into me they replaced my entire personality and in my mind that is Who I am that is the only eye I knew of the eye of my thoughts how refreshing it was to learn that throughout the book of Tanya the bow at Tanya always refers to thoughts as garments of the soul Levu Shahan fh never as the soul you explained why a garment what do you do with the garment what happens in the morning you put on an outfit you look in the mirror you don't like what it looks like what do you do you change it but imagine you say boy I am ugly forever I am grotesque forever it's like the historian Selim there was a fellow that's not from the ladder this is my my Rashi aunt Isis it triggers my own ideas so I'm gonna get back to a ladder but there was a Jew from Kalam and you know they have all these Kalam stories because the Jews of Harlem were brilliant and everybody else was jealous so how do we deal with jealousy we make up stories about the people were jealous of that's what we still do so that's the faith of Helen and so they tell but they have some good stories so there was a Jew of hellim driving on a train and he tells the conductor it's on all my journey I want to go to sleep I have to get out 4 o'clock in the morning when you stop at this in the station if you could please wake me up you're up anyway says of course and the druvan Callum goes to sleep he removes his garments and he falls asleep in the cabin little does he know that nearby in the cabin there was a Russian general who also went to sleep quarter to four in the morning the conductor wakes him up it's pitch dark in the cabin and he gets up and he puts on his clothes but instead of putting on his clothes he puts on the clothes of the Russian general he comes home and his wife sees him Crimea and call this Michigan I mean I know you're all right is everything fine he says why why do you say just as you look so different so I lost weight probably yeah you know what every man thinks she says no no why don't you take a look in the mirror takes a look in the mirror and he sees a Shar Amanda Russian general dressed to kill I'm a cyano the real generals their attire something special flawless impeccable quite appealing representing a lot of might and prowess and she turns to her is why he turns to his wife and says ah I always knew that these Russian conductors were schlemazel um they were idiots they were she says why he says he woke up the Russian general instead of me but this is the story of so many people's lives they look at their clothes and this is who they are and it's not just physical it's also physical clothes sometimes people get so obsessed with their uniforms and clothes that it becomes a substitute for their personality and the moment clothes are important very important but moment clothes become more important than your I then who then the person ISM is not in a good place so my shove is always defined as the lavash theme of the song I don't like my outfit who told you to wear it take it off take it off what holds me back from changing my jacket I'm lazy that's it I could don't say I can't I could the boss something was once giving a less a sheer and measured version it's shown in the Ukraine and our Ukrainian peasant a Ukrainian peasant was driving a horse and buggy and the horror and the buggy fell into a ditch and it was a winter cold day in the Ukraine fell into the mud and he saw a bunch of students sitting in maribor's and he opened the window and he puts in his head and in Ukranian he says could somebody please come out five minutes help me take out my pores from the quagmire but the most jumped up in the middle of teaching so what do Jews like to say they turn around and they say we can't so he gave a scream through the window he gave a scream in Ukraine he said Marge its doughnut cartridge you can you don't want us so the baal shem tov stopped the lesson and he said this is the lesson of today and this is the lesson of life you can you don't want I could take off my dirty jacket if I hate what it looks like take it off the problem is that my thoughts become me the moment my thoughts become me how can I take them off this is me unless I go into surgery and I start removing my limbs and my organs your thoughts don't constitute your essence your thoughts are just that thoughts so she continues and she says to me she writes in her email I realized thoughts were just that thoughts and it's we who choose if to engage the thoughts and define ourselves by them we choose if to act on our thoughts or not we choose to embrace those thoughts and say this is genuinely a description of Who I am or we look at those thoughts and we say yes it's part of my journey it's part of my struggle it's part of my condition but I don't have to choose to define myself by these thoughts however it's not easy thinking new thoughts when the old familiar thoughts tell you that suicide is the only answer and here comes what I consider to be a profoundly valuable observation if the only thing people learned was not to be afraid of their experience that alone would change the world's if the only thing people learned was not to be afraid of their inner experience that alone would change the world but what happened so often is I haven't in her experience and it's so mighty powerful it terrifies me it overwhelms me and I become like a little mouse in its presence and forfeit everything else you define every thought no thought defines you just like you decide what you put on and you decide what you take off and you decide when to put it on and take it off even if it feels so stuck to my body it's a garment it's a lavash the moment I could look at my urges my temptations my trauma my outburst ever anything I'm going through my brokenness I could look it in the eye and say hey I'm not afraid of I'm not terrified of you you are a thought you are a feeling you are a sensation you're in experience I even understand you I even respect you and I even know why you here my dear back seat screamer I even know why you're here you're here to make me human you're here to make me the person I'm supposed to become we have an effect that moment gained control over our life we may have not counted the week but we counted the day and the word here is counting because how do you say counting in Hebrew sphere uh what the sphere really mean one of the stones in the breastplate of the coin god that was called Sapir sapphire which means it shines who's fired them laughs a means you should make the seven weeks shine you should make the forty-nine days shine there is making the wick shine and there is making the day shine and the two are very very different a fellow once came to see me he would come to my classes and he described to me a struggle he has he works very hard and he comes home late and every single day he gets a text from his wife and the text reads the same when are you coming home question mark exclamation point with another question mark he immediately experiences a thought that produces anger frustration what's the thought the experiences and I give him credit that he was aware of this because most people just feel the anger they don't know the thought that precedes the anger and therefore they don't have mastery over ends and the thought is will she ever appreciate how hard I work does she think all these credit cards get covered automatically the mortgage is a gift from Uncle Sam and her father pays tuition what does she think I'm doing in the office in his words sitting on a hammock and drinking pina colada can't she just leave me alone but who is responsible for that anger he would say it's the text it has nothing to do with the text it's how he processed the text and if he learns that he could process it differently by taking a deep breath watching the thought and the anger that just flared up and then saying wait maybe this is my response because I grew up in a home with somebody who was a control freak and therefore I am again feeling controlled and manipulated I'm going crazy or maybe another thousand reasons that I know what I don't know but all she did was she asked me when I'm coming home I told him I'm looking at her texts and I'll tell you how you can interpret it she's basically saying I miss you so so much this house feels so empty without you my life is so devoid of the stamina and the camaraderie and the friendship and the love that I yearn for and when I will see your face by that door I will say hallo I will erupt in ecstasy and joy and the romance will flow from my lips like milk and honey ok not so dramatic ok so maybe he should come home and have a lovely conversation with his wife and asked her to rephrase the texts if that's what he needs to heal him and soothe him that's a perfectly fine conversation but what allows for such a conversation is the awareness and the differentiation between my garments and me without that differentiation I become trapped I become stuck do I know if this husband is going to be transformed through and through and his whole childhood would be redefined maybe yes maybe not but you don't need that to have a good relationship you don't need that to have a great marriage you don't need that to live a wholesome and meaningful life so what does it mean to make the day shine to make the day shine doesn't mean I tackle the core of the most I don't have to what it means is I tackle the way that emotion is expressing itself the way it's dictating how I speak to my child how I speak to you how I teach my class how I deal with this issue how I go about my day to day life minute to minute second a second hour by hour day my by day I will not allow the toxic image of myself whatever that toxic images to define me the moment I identify where that emotion came from I'm good identify where it came from and then I can choose to put it in its context let it be what it is but don't let it define me it's part of me it's part of me but it's not all of me it's the guy in the backseat of my chest screaming take the light I once read that the biographer of Sir Winston Churchill wrote something that he heard from Churchill he claimed that the doctor of Churchill heard this from Churchill I know it's been disputed but the insight is certainly a marvelous insight and some argue that it's actually very true Winston Churchill as you know was the Prime Minister of Great Britain appointed in the year 1940 as Hitler was planning the complete annexation of Europe including Great Britain before Roosevelt was in the war before Stalin was in the war Winston Churchill was the one leader of the free West to stand up to Adolf Hitler and according to natural circumstances he is from the few personalities who saved the world from Nazi tyranny but Winston Churchill had a traumatised youth I'm not gonna get into his whole story his father has traumatized him his relationship with his parents father was very very complicated and other factors in his life as you know great smoker great drinker great eater and Sir Winston Churchill suffered from depression his biographer writes that Churchill said that the way he dealt with his depression was he came to see his depression as a black dog a black dog that accompanies him wherever he goes and those of you who have grown up in homes with dogs or have a dog or had a dog know that the dog follows you sometimes everywhere even private places you go on the couch dog comes on the couch you get into bed the dog decides to sleep with you you go into the private room of needs and the dog is there he says that's my depression my black dog it accompanies me everywhere and it barks very very loudly but Churchill's insights he said changed his life because the black dog is black it's dark it's bleak it barks but it's not me it's my dog sometimes it will be quiet for 10 minutes and then I'll start barking which is the depression starting to tell me again how miserable my life is it's a dog barking thoughts are just that thoughts never be afraid of your experiences because the genesis of defeat is fear and the quotas contemporary we have nothing to fear but fear itself so when we say thoughts are garments of the soul one of the great themes in Tanja it's a very powerful powerful observation ah now we could come back and appreciate the whole debate and the conversation about Spheeris Spheeris Rema I think you already have it but let me just spell it out because now we can appreciate the depth and the nuance of the Terrier law concerning the counting or the the brightening sphere of the Eimer the work towards healing the work towards alignment the work towards redemption inner redemption and outer Redemption continues at all times and under all conditions in the brightest hours and in the bleakest of hours so we are instructed entire to count days but also to count weeks we are charged with the duty of learning self-control that's counting the days but we're also trying to achieve transformation not only self-control which is the count of the week but it is here that Rubino yerucham offers us a very powerful insight and he says in the time of the base HaMikdash in a time of great revelation great divine awareness the Toyota instructs us and if it instructs us it means it empowers us to count not only days but also to count weeks in the presence of such intense spiritual and divine awareness you have the ability the biblical ability the divine mandate not only to make your days shine but to make make your week shine not only self-control but self transformation however today says of any rhythm we don't breathe the same awareness we breathe in many more toxins physically and emotionally we're in exile exile is not just a geographical space exile means there is a diminished level of awareness exile means I'm alienated from my organic holistic self-exile means I'm living in somebody else's domain and they are in control of me spiritually what is exile exile means a life that is not fully aligned with its true self there's no wholesomeness and emancipation on its great level hence he says the Torah obligates you only to count the days to gain control over your behavior counting the weeks meaning fully transforming the emotions can't be a biblical mandate today yet the rabbi is always instituted a mitzvah is a telemachus meaning it's important to remember it's important to reminisce it's important to know about the path of transformation it's important to know that counting the days leads to the count of the weeks and it's important to understand that transformation always begins with self-control that the two are not completely divorced and therefore the rabbi's introduced the mitzvah of the weeks themselves the Rambam believes that today there's a biblical mandate for days and weeks twice versus today the entire sphere is a rabbinic mandate rabbin rahim' teaches us that fascinating opinion biblically you're empowered to count your days but you don't have to count your weeks I'll conclude the class with a story I read some years ago and it moved me very very deeply because it represented I think this idea in a very acute and a very powerful powerful way one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century was a man named John Nash there's a biography written about him it's called a beautiful mind it's a very heart-wrenching story the reason it's such a heart-wrenching story is he was born in 1928 and he was seen as a young man to be one of the most promising mathematicians in the world he set the foundations of what we know today as modern game theory which is basically the mathematics of decision making and he was still in his 20s and his fame grew during his years in Princeton University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT where he met his wife his fiancee his bride she was a physics major Alysia was her name and they married in 1957 but a few years later insane voices in his head began to overtake his life he developed a terrible mental illness in his delusions he accused one of the mathematicians of entering his office and stealing his ideas ideas he began to hear alien messages and he was offered tenure at the University of Chicago he declined because he said he was soon becoming emperor of Antarctica he believed that all men who wore red ties were part of a communist red conspiracy again he mailed letters to embassies in Washington declaring that the Communists were establishing veera government and his psychological issues became so problematic that at a lecture in Columbia University in 1959 he began speaking rubbish he was admitted to the hospital and he was diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia he spent months sometimes years in hospitals and treatment in recovery he received shock therapy a lot of medications and his wife could not deal with the pain and the stress so 1963 they got divorced but she felt so much compassion for him she continued to support him throughout his illness and once when he was homeless she had him live in her house as a boarder because he had nowhere else to live but it was during the 70s that slowly he learned to regain control over his life he wrote I had been hospitalized long enough that I would finally renounce my delusional hypothesis and revert to thinking of myself as a human of more conventional circumstances and return to mathematical research he wrote that after years of suffering he learned to be able to identify and say this is the voice of insanity and I need help right now to be able to have that subtle distinction between a desired self the self that he valued and the self that not due to his fault was suffering from a terrible illness Princeton University allowed him to start teaching again and indeed as he got control with medication and with a lot of help he became a world-renowned mathematician to the point that in 2001 Alysia remarried him she remarried him again and this was their second marriage they moved in together and he and she became one of the greatest advocates for mental health energy United States especially after their son Josh was also diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1994 John Nash won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences he goes with his wife to receive the prize and the way they documented or depicted his life they depicted the following scene I guess to accentuate the story at the ceremony Nash says the following I've always believed in numbers I've always believed in equations I've always believed in the logic that leads to reason but after a lifetime of such pursuits I asked today the question what is logic who decides reason my quest has taken me through the physical the metaphysical the delusional and back and I have made the most important discovery of my career the most important discovery of my life it is only in the mysterious equations of love that any reason or logic can be found I'm only here tonight because of pointing to his wife because of you you are the reason I am you are all my reasons thank you and at this moment as he received the Nobel Prize he was paying tribute to that one individual who even after the divorce was there for him helped him sustained him took him into her house helped him find himself once again and then remarried him because of her faith in him and at this moment he was basically saying that the summation of all of my mathematical work is my love to you my relationship with you the crowd jumps from there Cheers a thundering standing ovation to a brilliant mathematician who was been to hell and back not one time and not 10 times but hundreds of times but after that comes what I would call a very profound and maybe life-changing scene in terms of awareness right after the Nobel Prize ceremony John Nash is leaving the hall it's the greatest moment of his life and at that moment at that moment when he finally gained such renowned recognition for genuine accomplishments in economics of science and game theory and mathematics with his wife standing at his side at that moment the mental disease suddenly attacks him in the most vicious and sinister way suddenly walking out of that beautiful editorial editorial minute aureum and Sweden the palace his delusions come right back to him and in the beautiful hallways of Stockholm he sees the characters who were responsible for destroying his life he suddenly sees red commies the Communists coming hijacking him abducting him suddenly all those who are here to destroy him the red communists are right there at the Nobel Prize ceremony it's potentially a moment of tragedy of epic proportions here is a man he just won the Nobel Prize he just became world renowned considered one of the greatest minds of the generation of the century he's standing with his loving wife basking in the shadow of international glory and yet at this very moment the devil of mental illness simply abducts this poor man's so now his wife knows everything and as she's walking she takes a look and even though she can't see what is inside but the moment she sees his eyes and his face she knows instinctively he's not here anymore there's something wrong he wandered off mentally he's not present in the real world his body's overtaken by fear his eyes are elsewhere she can see it even if others wouldn't see it immediately in deep shock and in an unexpected moment she turns to her husband and she said John what is it what's wrong he pauses in his mind's eye he looks at the fictional people tormenting his mind he looks back at his wife with a smile on his face he says nothing is wrong nothing at all takes her hand and they go off and this is what I call a moment of true triumph he has reached a place in his life where he cannot rid himself from those tormenting fictional characters out to destroy him a result of his mental illness but he reached a place in his life where he has the awareness that allows him to choose and when his wife who was celebrating that moment says are you alright what's going on we know the truth nothing was a right everything was wrong but he chose to define which self he is going to right now breathe live with experience and connect to his wife with will it be the schizophrenic self with good justification it was all there but at this moment he could say I suffer from insanity I struggle with terrible terrible thoughts that nobody can understand and I should say this those of you who are aware of mental illness know what I'm talking about those who are not aware of it will never understand the struggle of people who endure these types of illnesses serious depressions it's beyond what people can imagine because it's not like illnesses that are visible on the body where you could see an emaciated body these are things that live inside and nobody knows them nobody sees them but John Nash at that moment became the human being who may not be able to count weeks light up the weeks but he could light up the day he could look at his wife and say nothing is wrong everything is good because I'm choosing to connect with you from my human rational elevated what we would call divine space he doesn't get rid of the schizophrenia he learns how to define it rather than letting it define him and I think the lesson I learned from it is he basically turns to all those images and he says these are voices that are coming from a part of me that is really ill but I'm sitting at the wheel of my life I have decided not to allow these thoughts to take over my life I will continue living I will continue loving and my deepest value in life is I want to connect to my wife I want to be there for her with her I want to hold hands with her I want to be her partner that is what I consider good healthy valuable in my life even as the devil's will not let go and will tell me I'm incapable of that life and John Nash later said about himself he said I would have never had great scientific ideas if I would have more normal thoughts meaning he came even to look at his illness I can't say as a blessing but as a springboard for crazy ideas crazy ideas require sometimes craziness and people sane people always have sane ideas but you change the world through insane ideas not through sane ideas every challenge in life is that take your insanity take your trauma and turn it into an insanity that can produce insane ideas that will change the world have a wonderful week where did you work amongst model magic your husband really wanted a psychiatric ward I'm psychiatric so you found that the schizophrenic people or what very artists some of them were extraordinarily artistic and some of them were very very bright and unusually insightful like in the group's it was amazing man groups it's a brilliant brilliant brilliant insight that you could be blown away from it how they could just zero in on something that somebody else did here that's the uniqueness of it yes but it's also a tragedy here so try try so many of them could never like this one inter graduate who is amazing he was amazing amazing he was extraordinary artistic it was like over the top artistic and he kills himself artistic he was artistic when the energy into my truck was too much and the brilliance is on believing but sigh and that it's in a science that is an unbelievable thing yes unbelievable is something people can tell indeed indeed indeed indeed and it's not their fault it's nobody's if you have cancer people have to be taught more about it because there are a lot of stigmas there are relaxant and people who suffer are not comfortable I can't beat them in the eyes they don't look beyond a lot of sticky this class is brought to you by the achieve Annette please help us continue the classes make even a small contribution at triple w dot they you Shiva net slash donate